“And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go
speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts: I will go
also.” Zechariah 8:21.

This prophecy may relate to the Jews, literally, and it is referred to by their
learned doctors as to the days of the Messiah. We believe, also, that it refers
to the days of the Messiah and we look for times when again the Holy Land shall
be fully inhabited and the people shall rejoice to meet together to worship the
Lord their God. We do not see, however, that this prophecy has yet been
accomplished, and we look for it to be fulfilled in the latter days. Spiritually
it teaches just this, that when God returns to bless His Church there are
certain signs and marks of His return. Just as the coming back of the sun when
he advances north of the Equator and again cheers us with his warmth, is marked
by the springing up of flowers and the singing of birds, so the return of God’s
Holy Spirit to bless His Church is marked by certain signsand tokens.

The text tells us what those signs and tokens are, but before I mention them,
let me suggest that every Believer should pray that these cheering indications
may be manifest in our midst—that in these, our days, the Lord may return unto
His Jerusalem and be jealous for her with a great jealousy—that we may see glad
seasons such as our fathers have told us of, which happened in their days and in
the olden times before them. As far as shall lie in the ability of any one of
us, may we help towards such revivals by our prayers, by our efforts and by our
consistent obedience to the Gospel. And may the Lord visit us according to the
desire of our hearts.

I. One of the first signs of God’s Presence among a people is that THEY TAKE
GREAT INTEREST IN DIVINE WORSHIP.

“The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily
to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts.” It is clear from this
that they no longer despise assemblies for worship and no longer count Divine
service to be a weariness. On the contrary, they begin to value the means of
Grace and desire to make good use of them. The first solemn assembly mentioned
here is the Prayer Meeting and certainly one of the surest tokens of a
visitation of God’s Spirit to a community is their delighting to meet for
prayer.

The first cry of the people mentioned in our text was, “Let us go speedily to
pray before the Lord.” It is no statement of mine, suggested by unreasonable
zeal, but it is the result of long-continued observation when I assert that the
condition of a Church may be very accurately gauged by its Prayer Meetings. If
the spirit of prayer is not with the people, the minister may preach like an
angel, but he cannot expect success. If there is not the spirit of prayer in a
Church there may be wealth, there may be talent, there may be a measure of
effort, there may be an extensive machinery, but the Lord is not there. It is a
sure evidence of the Presence of God that men pray as the rising of the
thermometer is an evidence of the increase of the temperature.

As the Nilometer measures the rising of the water in the Nile, and so
foretells the amount of harvest in Egypt, so is the Prayer Meeting a “Graceometer,”
and from it we may judge of the amount of Divine working among a people. If God
is near a Church it must pray. And if He is not there, one of the first tokens
of His absence will be slothfulness in prayer. God’s people, by their saying one
to another, “Let us go speedily to pray,” manifest that they have a sense of
their needs—they feel that they need much, much that Nature cannot yield
them—they feel their need of Divine Grace, their need of quickening, their need
of God’s help if sinners are to be converted. They feel their need of His help
if even those who are saved are to be steadfast—their need of the Holy Spirit
that they may grow in Grace and glorify God. He who never prays surely does not
know his own needs and how can he be taught of the Lord at all? God’s people are
a people sensible of their needs and therefore the absence of a sense of poverty
is a sad token.

Moreover, the love which God’s people have for prayer shows their desire
after heavenly things. Those who frequently meet together for importunate,
wrestling prayer, practically show that they desire to see the Lord’s Kingdom
come. They are not so taken up with their own business that they cannot afford
time to think of God’s business. They are not so occupied with the world’s
pleasures that they take no pleasure in the things of God. Believers in a right
state of heart value the prosperity of the Church and, seeing that it can only
be promoted by God’s own hand, they cry mightily unto the Lord of Hosts to
stretch out His hand of mercy and to be favorable to His Church and cause.

Church members who never pray for the good of the Church have no love for it.
If they do not plead for sinners they have no love for the Savior and how can
they be truly converted persons? Such as habitually forsake the assembling of
themselves together for prayer may well suspect the genuine character of their
piety. I am not, of course, alluding to those who are debarred by circumstances,
but I allude to those who, from frivolous excuses, absent themselves from the
praying assemblies. How dwells the love of God in them? Are they not dead
branches of the vine? May they not expect to
be taken away before long? Earnest meetings for prayer, indeed, not only prove
our sense of need and our desire for spiritual blessings, but they manifest most
our faith in the living God, and our belief that He hears prayer, for men will
not continue in supplication if they do not believe that God hears them.
Sensible men would soon cease their prayers if they were not convinced that
there is an ear which hears their petitions. Who would persevere in a vain
exercise?

Our united prayers prove that we know that God is, and that He is a rewarder of
them that diligently seek Him. We know that the Lord is able to work according
to our desires and that He is willing to be entreated of us. I have never known
a thirsty man by a well who would not use the bucket which was there ready to
hand unless, indeed, he was of the opinion that the well was dry. I have never
known a man who wanted wealth and had a good trade, who would not exercise his
trade. And so I have never known a man who believed prayer to be really
effectual and felt his great needs
who did not engage in prayer.

It is an ill token to any community of Christians when prayer is at a low
ebb, for it is clear evidence that they do not know their own needs, they are
not anxious about spiritual things and neither do they believe that God will
enrich them in answer to their petitions. Beloved, may we never, as a Church,
deserve censure for neglecting prayer! Our meetings for prayer have excited
general astonishment by their number, but they are not all they might be. I
shall put it to the conscience of each one to say whether you are as prayerful
as you should be. Did you ever hear of a Church member who had not attended a
Prayer Meeting for a month? Do you know of Church members who never assemble
with the Brethren so much as once in a quarter of a year? Do you know of any who
have not been to a Prayer Meeting in this place for the last six months? Do you
know such?

I will not say I know any such. I will do no more than hint that such people may
exist. But if you know them will you give them my Christian love and say that
nothing depresses the pastor’s spirit like the absence of Church members from
the public assemblies of prayer, and that if anything could make him strong in
the Lord, and give him courage to go forward in the Lord’s work, it would be if
all of you were to make the prayer meeting your special delight? I shall be
satisfied when I see our prayer meetings as crowded as the services for
preaching. And it strikes me if ever we are fully baptized into God’s Spirit, we
shall arrive at that point. A vastly larger amount of prayer ought to be among
us than at present and if the Lord visits us graciously He will set us praying
without ceasing.

But next, these people also took an interest in meetings for instruction. I
find that the Chaldee translates the second sentence, “Let us seek the doctrine
of Jehovah of Hosts.” The Lord’s coming near to any people will be sure to
excite in them a longing to hear the Word. God sends impulses of enquiry over
men’s minds and suddenly places of worship become crowded which were half empty
before. Preachers, also, who were cold and dead become quickened and speak with
earnestness and life. No doubt waves of religious movement pass over nations and
peoples—and when God comes to
a people the crest of that wave will be seen in this form—that the kingdom of
Heaven becomes an object of interest and men press unto it!

During the revival under John the Baptist, the people went in crowds into the
wilderness to hear the strange preacher who bade them repent. The revival under
the Apostles was marked by their everywhere preaching the Word and the people
listening. This was the great token of the Reformation—meetings were held under
Gospel Oaks, out upon the commons and away in lone houses—and in glens and woods
men thronged to listen to the Word of God! The professionals of popery were
forsaken for the simple preaching of the Truth of God! This also marked the last
grand
revival of religion in our own country under Whitfield and Wesley. The Word of
the Lord was precious in those days. And whether the Gospel was preached
among the colliers of Kingswood or the rabble of Kennington Common, tens of
thousands were awakened and rejoiced in the joyful notes of Free Grace.

Men loved to hear the Word—they said to one another, “Let us seek the Lord.”
It is said that Moorfields would be full of light on a dark winter’s morning at
five o’clock when Mr. Whitfield was to preach because so many people would be
finding their way to the rendezvous, each one carrying a lantern. And so also
over there in Zoar Street, in Southwark, when Mr. John Bunyan was out of prison
and was going to preach, a couple of thousand would be assembled at five o’clock
in the morning to enjoy his honest testimony.

It is a token for good when people press to hear the Word. I think we have in a
measure the first token—a love for prayer, but we need far more of it. As for
the second token, namely, an earnest love for listening to the Word of God, we
have that in abundance. See you not how the crowds rush in like a mighty torrent
as soon as the doors are open? Putting the two together, it seems that both
these forms of meeting were loved by the people because they sought salvation
therein, or as the margin has it, they, “entreated the face of the Lord.” They
came to pray with a view to be saved! They came to hear preaching with a view to
Divine favor! They wanted reconciliation with God—they had wandered from Him,
but now they sought Him! They wanted fellowship with God!

They had said to God, “Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of Your
ways.” But now they said, “Reveal Yourself unto us, O God, as You do not unto
the world.” They longed to promote God’s Glory, even as before they dishonored
Him. Yes, when Prayer Meetings and Preaching Meetings shall be attended with
this end and object—that we may get near to God and that we may glorify
God—there shall be happy days, indeed, for us! Master Fox in his, “Acts and
Monuments,” speaking of the time when the Reformation was breaking out, uses
language something to this effect—“It was lovely to see their travels, earnest
seeking, burning zeal, Bible reading, watching, sweet assemblies, resort of one
neighbor to another for conference and mutual confirmation.” And, he adds, “All
which may make us now to blush for shame in these, our days, of free
profession.”

We may take the good man’s hint and feel shame for neglected opportunities, cold
devotions and disregard of the Word of God. Our fathers loved to meet for prayer
and to hear the preaching of the Truth of God. And when they came together it
was with an intensely earnest desire to obtain the Divine blessing. To get this
they risked life and liberty, meeting, even, when fine and imprisonment, or
perhaps the gallows might be their reward. O to see the like earnestness among
ourselves as to the means of Grace! May the Lord Jesus send it to us by the
working of His Holy Spirit.

II. Another sign of God’s visiting a people in mercy is that THEY STIR EACH
OTHER UP TO ATTEND UPON THE MEANS OF GRACE, for “the inhabitants of one city
shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord.”

That is to say, they did not merely ask one another to go if they casually met.
They did not bring in the subject accidentally if they could do so readily in
common conversation—but the inhabitants of one city went to another on purpose
to exhort them! They made a journey about it. As men go to market, from town to
town, so did these people try to open a market for Christ—and not only one
messenger, but many of the inhabitants of one city went on purpose all the way
to another city, with set design, to induce them to join in worship, saying,
“Let us go speedily to pray before
the Lord.”

They put themselves out of the way to do it. They had such a desire that great
numbers might come together to worship the Most High that they took much trouble
to invite their neighbors. God will be with us, indeed, if each one of us shall
be anxious to bring others to Jesus, and to that end shall try to bring them to
hearken to the Word of God. Why were these men so earnest? The reply will be,
they persuaded others to come to the meetings for worship out of love to God’s
House, to God’s cause, and to God Himself. God’s House is honored and beautified
when great numbers come together. The ways of Zion do mourn and languish when
but few assemble for prayer. Christ has promised to be where two or three are
met together in His name. Still, it is not helpful to comfortable fellowship for
a mere handful to meet in a large house. We feel like sparrows alone on the
housetop when such is the case.

A great space and only a sprinkling of people to occupy it is like a big barn
with only one bundle of straw in it—the winds howl in and out of it very
miserably. I am sure if any of you attend a place of worship where there are
very few beside yourselves, you must feel unhappy. And if you do not, why surely
your hearts cannot be in the right place. Warm hearts are not easily kept alive
among empty pews. A coal must be very lively to burn alone, but many glowing
coals laid together help to keep each other alight.

No one can doubt, moreover, that full houses give opportunity to the preacher to
glorify God. It is hopeful work to throw the net where there are great shoals of
fish. Where men are hearing, we may hope that God will be blessing and therefore
earnest Christians love to see the aisles and seats crowded. Besides, God is
glorified when great numbers come together with earnest minds to celebrate His
worship. In early days, in the Jewish Church, the men of Israel did not come by
twos and threes and meet together in scant numbers, but from all parts of
Judea’s land—north, south, east, and west—they came together in companies,
singing through the glades of the forest, singing through the dells, and singing
over the hills! And when they reached the city of Jerusalem in their hundreds of
thousands, their praise was a great shout, like the voice of thunder and the
smoke of their sacrifices rose up in clouds to Heaven.

Those were grand days! Does not David seem to relish the service of the Lord his
God all the more because of the multitude that kept holy day? Therefore the
saints love to see many come to pray and to listen to the Word of God because
the multitude honors the house and God thus honors God Himself. O Brothers and
Sisters, we think the cause is sadly declining when hearers are like the
gleanings of the vintage, when service time comes and sees vacant seats by the
score because professors shrink at the weather, or hunt up an excuse for staying
at home, being too idle, too indifferent to
cross the threshold of their houses unless some eloquent preacher or fresh comer
shall attract them. But we reckon that God’s cause prospers when the people come
joyfully in their bands to listen to the Truth of God and God’s Spirit applies
it to their hearts with power, leading them to prayer and praise.

Moreover, Believers love to bring others to the House of God because they wish
to do good to them. Did you ever notice how the little birds, when they find a
heap of corn, begin to chatter and twitter as if they would call all the other
birds to come and feast, also? Grace is generous and is never akin to churlish
Nabal. Misers would rather keep all their wealth to themselves, but a man who is
rich in faith feels his happiness increased when others have faith, too! As soon
as we drink of the Water of Life, a sacred instinct within us bids us cry,
“Come.” “Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters.” He knows not the
Grace of God who has no desire that others should know it, also. You will
assuredly long for the souls of others if God has saved your soul. Natural
humanity, let alone our alliance to the Divine Nature, leads us to bid others
come to Christ.

Besides, the love of company in the Christian makes him invite his neighbors to
Gospel worship. Believers are like sheep in this among other things, namely,
that they are gregarious. A man who loves to keep his religion to himself must
surely be a stranger to the religion of Christ! Communion is one of the sweetest
joys of the spirit. Fellowship with saints above will be one jewel of our
everlasting crown and fellowship with saints below is one of the sweetest
cordials of our mortal cares. “I went to the House of God in company,” says
David, as if it made the house so much the sweeter to go in
company with others who went there. “I had gone with the multitude. I went with
them to the House of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude
that kept holy day.” For the sake of communion we long to see many going upon
the heavenly pilgrimage.

Observe in our text there does not appear to have been any minister or
missionary employed to go from one city to another, and to say, “Let us go and
pray,” but the inhabitants, themselves, undertook the duty of invitation and
persuasion, and said, “Let us go and pray unto the Lord.” The people,
themselves, attended to mutual provocation to love and to good works! How I wish
they did so now! They did not wait for the exhortations of one specially set
apart to be a prompter and an organizer. But their own hearts were so warm that
they did it spontaneously among themselves! My Brothers and Sisters, may you
thus be pastors to one another! There are far too many of you for me to look
after personally, therefore I pray you stir one another up to every good word
and work.

I believe that when a man stirs others up it is good for himself, for a man
cannot, in common decency, be very cold, himself, who bids others be warm. He
cannot, surely, unless he is an arrant hypocrite, be negligent of those duties
which he bids others attend to! Beloved, I commit this charge to you, and then I
have done with this point. This morning I ask you to visit one another and to
say, “Come, let us not as a Church lose the Presence of God after nearly 20
years’ enjoyment of it. Let not our minister’s hands grow weak by our neglect of
prayer. Let not the work of the Church flag through our indifference, but let us
make a brotherly covenant that we will go speedily to pray before the Lord and
seek the Lord of Hosts, that we may retain His Presence and have yet more of it,
to the praise of the glory of His Grace.”

III. I must pass on to notice that it appears from our text that it is a sure
mark of God’s visiting a people, when THEY ARE URGENT TO ATTEND UPON THESE HOLY
EXERCISES AT ONCE.

The text says, “Let us go speedily to pray,” by which is meant, I suppose, that
when the time came to pray, they were punctual, they were not laggards.
They did not come into the assembly late. They did not drop in, one by one, long
after the service had begun—but they said, “Let us go speedily.” They looked up
to their clocks and said, “How long will it take us to walk so as to be there at
the commencement? Let us start five minutes before that time lest we should not
be able to keep up the pace and should, by any means, reach the door after the
first prayer.”

I wish late comers would remember David’s choice. You remember what part he
wished to take in the House of God? He was willing to be a doorkeeper and that
not because the doorkeeper has the most comfortable berth, for that is the
hardest post a man can choose. But he knew that doorkeepers are the first in and
the last out and so David wished to be first at the service and the last at the
going away! How few would be of David’s mind! It has been said that Dissenters
in years gone by placed the clock outside the Meeting House so that they might
never enter late. But the modern Dissenters place the clock inside, that their
preachers may not keep them too long! There is some truth in the remark, but it
is not to our honor.

This was, however, a fault with our forefathers, for quaint old Herbert said—“O
be drest, stay not for th’ other pin: why you have lost a joy for it worth
worlds.” Let us mend our ways and say, one to another, in the language of the
text, “Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord.” Let us go with quick feet.
If we go slowly to market, let us go quickly to Prayer Meeting. If we are slow
on week days, let us go quickly on Sunday. Let us never keep Jesus Christ
waiting and we shall do so if we are not on time, for He is sure to be punctual,
even if only two or three are met together in His name. The expression, however,
means more than this. “Let us go speedily” means, let us go heartily—do not let
us crawl to prayer, but let us go to it as men who have something before them
which attracts them.

When the angels serve God they never do it as though they were half asleep. They
are all alive and burning like flames of fire. They have six wings and, I
guarantee you, they use them all! When the Lord says, “Gabriel, go upon My
bidding,” he outstrips the lightning! O, to exhibit some such ardor and zest in
the service of God! If we pray, let us pray as if we mean it! If we worship, let
us worship with our hearts. “Let us go speedily,” and may the Lord make our
hearts to be like the chariots of Amminadib for swiftness and rapidity—glowing
wheels and burning axles may God give to our
spirits—that we may never let the world think we are indifferent to the love of
Jesus. “Let us go speedily.”

The words, “Let us go speedily,” mean—let us go at once, or instantly. If any
good thing has been neglected and we resolve to attend to it better, let us do
it at once. Revivals of religion—when is the best time for them? Directly! When
is the best time to repent of sin? Today! When is the best time for a cold heart
to grow warm? Today! When is the season for a sluggish Christian to be
industrious? Today! When is the period for a backslider to return? Today! When
is the time for one who has crawled along the road to Heaven to mend his pace?
Today! Is it not always today?

And, indeed, when should it be? “Tomorrow,” you say. Ah, but you may never have
it! And, when it comes, it will still be today. Tomorrow is only in the fool’s
almanac—it exists nowhere else. Today! Today, let us go speedily! I beseech the
Church of God here to be yet more alive and at once to wake up. Time is
flying—we cannot afford to lose it. The devil is wide awake, why should we be
asleep? Error is stalking through the land, evil influences are abroad
everywhere! Men are dying, Hell is filling, the grave is gorged and yet is
insatiable—and the man of destruction is not yet satisfied. Shall we lie down in
wicked satisfaction, yielding to base laziness? Awake, arise, you Christians!
Now, even now, lest it be said of you, “Curse you Meroz, says the Lord, curse
you bitterly the inhabitants thereof, because they came not to the help of the
Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.”

I know we are all apt to think that we live in the most important era of history
and I admit that under certain aspects every day is a crisis, but I claim
liberty to say that there never was a period in the world’s history when
Christian activity, and prayerfulness, and genuine revival were more needed than
just now. Where is our nation? Is it not on the very verge of becoming, once
again, a province of the Pope’s dominion? Are not the modern Pharisees
compassing sea and land to make proselytes? Does it not seem as if the people
were gone mad upon their idols and were altogether fascinated by the charms of
the Whore of Babylon, and drunken with her cup? Do you not see everywhere the
old orthodox faith forsaken, and men occupying Christian pulpits who do not
believe, but even denounce the doctrines which they have sworn to defend?

Might I not say of Christendom in England, that “her whole head is sick and her
whole heart faint”? The daughter of Zion staggers in the street for
weakness—there is none to help her among all her sons—all her friends have dealt
treacherously with her, they have become her enemies. Her adversaries are the
chief, her enemies prosper. Her Nazarites were purer than snow and their
separation from the world was known of all men—but now they are defiled with
worldliness until they are blacker than a coal! From the daughter of Zion her
beauty is departed. O you that love her, let your hearts sound as a harp for
her! O you that love her, weep day and night for her hypocrisy, for unless the
Lord returns unto her the time of her sore distress draws near. Thus says the
Lord, “Arise, cry out in the night season, pour out your hearts like water
before the Lord, and then the Lord will return and be gracious to His
inheritance.”

IV. For a moment I shall call your attention to another point. When God
visits a people they will not only attend to prayer and preaching, and stir each
other up to do so at once, but THEY WILL HAVE A SPECIAL EYE TO GOD IN THESE
DUTIES.

Observe, they shall say, “Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to
seek the Lord of Hosts.” Alas, many go to religious meetings to be seen of men!
I am afraid there is a great deal too much exhibition of dress in some quarters,
and there certainly cannot be a greater abomination than to make the House of
God a show room for our finery. Jesus might say, “Take these things away. It is
written My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it an
exhibition wherein to display yourselves.”

Some go to worship because it is the custom and it would not be respectable to
stay away. “We must have a pew in Church, you know, or we should be remarked
upon in society.” I am glad that people attend Divine worship for any reason,
but mere custom is a poor motive and is no sign of Divine Grace. The people in
the text did not say, “We will go that we may see our neighbors, and that our
neighbors may see us.” No, they went to “pray before the Lord.” They did not
assemble to seek a man. They did not go to hear Mr. So-and-So preach. Of course
they would sooner hear one who preached all the Gospel and preached it plainly,
than another who preached half the Gospel and fired over their heads. But,
still, they looked through the man to the man’s Master and they did not think
that the Master was tied up to any one man.

May we cultivate in our midst the desire to worship for God’s sake, not for the
preacher’s sake, whoever he may be. I believe it is not wrong for a Christian
man to feel that he is better fed by one minister than by another and therefore
to be most glad when God’s servant is in the pulpit. But if that feeling grows
so that if he cannot hear his favorite preacher he will stay at home, it is most
mischievous. I thank God that my Master has other preachers besides Paul. There
is Apollos, there is Cephas, and beyond these I see a great company of them that
publish the Good News. I will hear what God will speak through them. I would
have you note, Beloved, how different is my text from that formal worship into
which it is so easy to fall. “I have been to the Prayer Meeting. I have done my
duty and I can go home satisfied. I have taken a seat at the Tabernacle and
listened to two sermons on Sunday—I feel I have done my duty.”

Oh, dear Hearer! That is a poor way of living! I need a great deal more than all
that or I shall be wretched. At the Prayer Meeting I must see God, I must pour
out my soul before Him! I must feel that the spirit of prayer has been there and
that I have participated in it, otherwise what was the good of my being there? I
must, when in the assembly on Sunday, find some blessing to my own soul! I must
get another glimpse of the Savior! I must come to be somewhat more like Him! I
must feel my sin rebuked, or my flagging Graces revived! I must feel that God
has been blessing poor sinners and bringing them to Christ! I must feel, indeed,
that I have come into contact with God, or else what is my Sunday worth,
and what is my having been in the assembly worth? If God shall bless you,
indeed, you will worship spiritually and you will count nothing to be true
worship which is not of the spirit and of the heart and soul. May God quicken us
all up to that point, and He shall have the praise.

V. The last thing is this—it is a blessed sign of God’s visiting a people
when EACH ONE OF THEM IS RESOLVED, PERSONALLY, THAT HE WILL, IN A SPIRITUAL
MANNER, WAIT UPON GOD.

Notice the last four words. “I will go also.” “Let us go speedily to pray before
the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts: I will go also.” That is the point—“I
will go also.” The Christian man should neither be content, when he goes to
worship, to leave others behind, nor should he be content to drive others before
him and stop behind himself. It is said of Julius Caesar that he owed his
victories to the fact that he never said to his soldiers, “Go,” but always said,
“Let us go.” That is the way to win. Example is mightier than precept!

We read of the Pharisees of old that they laid burdens on other men’s shoulders,
but they themselves did not touch them with one of their fingers—true Christians
are not so. They say, “I will go also.” Was not that bravely spoken of poor old
Latimer, when he was to be burnt with Ridley. Ridley was a younger and stronger
man, and as he walked to the stake, old Latimer, with his quaintness about him
to the last, cried to his Brother, Ridley, “Have after, as fast as my poor old
legs can carry me.” The dear old saint was marching to his burning as fast as he
could—not at all loath to lay his aged body upon the altar for his Lord! That is
the kind of man who makes others into men—the man who habitually says, “I will
go also; even if I am called to be burned for Christ. Whatever is to be done or
suffered, I will go also.”

I would be ashamed to stand here and say to you, “Brothers and Sisters, pray.
Brothers, preach. Brethren, labor,” and then be an idler myself. And you, also,
would be ashamed to say to others, “Let us pray. Let us be earnest,” while you
are not praying and not earnest yourselves. Example is the backbone of
instruction! Be, yourself, what you would have others be and do, yourself, what
you would have others do. “I will go also,” because I need to pray as much as
anybody else. I will go to hear the Word, for I need to hear it as well as
others. I will go and wait upon God, for I need to see His face. I will cry to
Him for a blessing, for I need a blessing. I will confess my sin before Him, for
I am full of sin. I will ask mercy through the precious blood of Jesus, for I
must have it or perish.

“I will go also.” If nobody else will go, I will go. And if all the rest go I
will go also. I do not want to pledge any of you this morning. I shall not,
therefore, ask you to hold up your hands, but I should like to put it very
personally to all the members of this Church. We have enjoyed the Presence and
blessing of God for many years in a very remarkable manner and it is not taken
from us. But I am jealous, I believe it is a godly jealousy and not
unbelief—lest there should be among us a slackness in prayer and a lack of zeal
for the Glory of God. I am fearful of a neglecting of the souls of our
neighbors, and a ceasing to believe to the full in our mission and in the call
of God to be, each one of us, in this world as Christ was, saviors of others.

My Brothers and Sisters, knit together as we are in Church fellowship and bound
by common cords to one blessed Master, let each one say within himself, “I will
go also.” The Church shall be the subject of my prayer. The minister shall share
in my petitions. The Sunday school shall not be forgotten. The College shall be
remembered in supplication. The Orphanage shall have my heart’s petitions. I
will plead with God for the Evangelists. I will consider the congregation at the
Tabernacle and pray that it may gently melt into the Church. I will pray for the
strangers who fill the aisles and crowd the pews that God will bless them. Yes,
I will say unto God this day, “My God, You have saved me, given me a part and
lot among Your people and put me in Your garden where Your people grow and
flourish. I will not be a barren tree, but abound in fruit, especially in
prayer. If I cannot do anything else I can pray. If this is my one mite, I will
put that into the treasury. I will put You in remembrance and plead with You,
and give You no rest until You establish Your cause and make it praise in the
earth.”

I am not asking more of you than Jesus would ask, nor do I exact anything at
your hands—you will cheerfully render that which is a tribute due to the
infinite love of your Lord. Now, do not say, dear Brother, “I hope the Church
will wake up.” Leave it alone and mind that you wake up yourself. Do not say, “I
hope they will be stirred up this morning.” Never mind others! Stir up yourself.
Begin to enquire, “Which Prayer Meeting shall I go to, for I mean to join the
people of God and let them hear my voice, or at least have my presence. And if I
cannot go to the Tabernacle I will drop in near my own house. And if there is no
meeting there I will open my own house—the largest room of any cottage shall be
used for a Prayer Meeting—or my parlor if I have one. I will have a share in the
glorious work of attracting a blessing from the skies. I will send up my
electric rod of prayer into the clouds of blessing to bring down the Divine
force.”

Do it! Do it! Let each one say, “I will go also.” May God bless this Word to His
people, and I am sure it will result in benediction to sinners. For, remember,
you ungodly ones, that all this noise is about you. What we need the blessing of
God for is that you may be saved! We cannot bear that you should remain as you
are, unconverted! And I am asking God’s people to pray specially with an eye to
your salvation. Shall we think about your souls and will you not think about
them yourselves? Are we inclined to move Heaven and earth that you might be
saved and will you sit still and perish? May the Lord awaken you to say, “If
others are going to pray unto the Lord and seek His face, I will go also,” and
the Lord bless you, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.